Briarwood Cottage (17 page)
Your choice
.
“And wouldn’t you be a prime example of appearances being deceiving, Sedona Sullivan?” he countered.
“Don’t be disturbing my guests, Conn,” Patrick called out.
“We’re just having a friendly conversation.” Conn’s eyes hadn’t left Sedona’s since he’d stopped at the table. “Am I disturbing you,
a stór
?”
Yes
.
“Not at all,” she lied.
The truth was that she’d been feeling wired and edgy from the moment he strode into the hall for a sound check before the reception.
“Though you do force me to point out that I’m no one’s
darling
,” she tacked on. He’d undoubtedly used the generic endearment the way American men used “babe” or “sweetheart.”
Even without having read about all the rich and famous women the rocker was reported to have been involved with, any sensible woman would keep her distance from Conn Brennan. Despite having grown up in a commune of former hippies and flower children, Sedona had always considered herself unwaveringly sensible.
Her knowledge of the endearment failed to put a dent in his oversized male ego. Instead, amusement danced in his electric blue eyes.
“Would you have learned that bit of Irish from some local lad attracted by your charms?” he asked as he rubbed a jaw darkened with a day-old stubble that added machismo to his beautiful face. “Which, may I say, despite your short time in our fair village, would not surprise me in the least.”
“My parents believe everyone should speak at least two languages,” she responded mildly. “I’m fluent in Spanish, know enough just French to order a baguette and wine in Paris, and thanks to a year studying abroad at Trinity College Dublin, along with the past few days having an opportunity to practice, I can carry on a bit of a conversation in Irish.”
Raindrops glistened in his black hair as he tilted his head. “Mary wasn’t exaggerating when she was going on about your charms,” he said finally. “And aren’t brains and beauty an enticing combination? As for you not being my
darling
, Sedona Sullivan, the night’s still young.”
“Perhaps not for those in Dublin or Cork,” she said, struggling against the seductive pull of that smile. The rugby game ended with a score by the redshirted Saxons. The men who’d been watching the TV shuffled out, muttering curses about allegedly blind refugees. “But if you don’t leave soon, you won’t be able to drive your fancy ‘frugal’ import to the airport because Castlelough’s cobblestone streets will have been rolled up.”
He gave her a longer, considering look, his intense blue eyes narrowing as he scrutinized her in silence for what seemed like forever, even as some part of her brain still managing to function told her must have only been a few seconds.
“You’re order’s up,” he said, without having even glanced toward the bar. “Since Patrick’s occupied with my fish and chips, I’ll bring your late bite back with my ale.”
He smelled so amazing, like night rain darkened with the scent of leather and the tang of sweat from having played as hard for a small-town home crowd of a hundred wedding guests as he had to his recent sell-out crowd of ninety thousand in London’s Wembley Stadium.
Tamping down a reckless urge to lick his dark neck, Sedona forced a slight smile.
“Thank you. We certainly wouldn’t want your fish to burn while your brother’s distracted delivering my meal.”
Assuring herself that there wasn’t a woman on the planet who’d be capable of not checking out the very fine butt in those dark jeans, she watched his long, lose-hipped outlaw’s stride to the bar.
Not wanting to be caught staring as she he returned with his dark ale and her plate, she turned her gaze back to the couple in the snug. The woman was now sitting on the man’s lap as they tangled tonsils.
Why didn’t they just get a damn room?
“Now there’s a pair who know how to make the most of a rainy night,” Conn said as he sat down across from her.
There was no way she was going to respond to that.
Instead, she turned her attention to the small white plate of deep-fried cheese served on a bed of salad greens with a side of dark port and berry sauce. The triangular piece of cheese that had been fried in a light-as-a-feather beer batter nearly made her swoon.
As she’d discovered when making her cakes, Irish dairy farmers seemed to possess a magic that churned milk into pure gold. “This is amazingly delicious.”
“The French claim they make the best cream and butter, but I’d put ours against theirs any day. That St. Brigid’s cheese you’re eating is a local Camembert from Michael Joyce’s farm.”
Michael was Mary Joyce’s older brother. Sedona had met the former war correspondent turned farmer and his American wife at a dinner at the Joyce family home her first night in Castlelough.
“And speaking of delicious, I’m remiss in not telling you that your cake had me tempted to lick my plate.”
“Thank you.” When his words brought back her earlier fantasy of licking his neck, she felt color rising in her cheeks.
“Of course, I wouldn’t have,” he continued, thankfully seemingly unaware of her wicked, too tempting thoughts. “Because I promised Mary.”
“You promised Mary you wouldn’t lick your dessert plate?”
“No. Despite being an international movie star, Mary can be a bit of a stickler for propriety. So I promised to behave myself.”
He waited a beat, just long enough to let her know something else was coming. “Which was the only reason I didn’t leave a set to the lads and dance with you at the reception.”
“Well, no one can fault you for your confidence.”
“Would you be saying you wouldn’t have given me a dance? If I hadn’t been performing and had asked?”
Dance with this man? From the way he’d watched her from the bandstand, his eyes like blue flames, Sedona had a feeling that dancing wasn’t precisely what he’d had in mind.
“I came here to work,” she said. “Not dance.” Nor hook up with a hot Irish musician.
“It was a grand cake,” he said. “Even better than the one I was served at the White House.” Where he’d received a presidential medal for his social activism, Sedona remembered. “And one of the few that tasted as good as it looked. Most cakes these days seem to have Spackle spread over them.”
She laughed at the too true description. “That’s fondant, which creates a smoother surface to decorate.”
“It’s shite is what it is. When I was growing up, my mam’s carrot cake always won first prize at the count fair. With six children in the family, we’d all have to wait our turn to lick the bowl or she’d never have ended up with enough frosting to cover it, but I always believed that the cream cheese frosting was the best part.”
Sedona was relieved when Patrick arrived at the table with his brother’s fish and chips, interrupting a conversation that had returned to licking.
“Something we can agree on,” she said, dipping the cheese into a sauce brightened with flavors of ginger, orange, and lemons. “Which is why I used buttercream on the cakes for the wedding.”
He bit into the battered cod. Heaven help her, somehow the man managed to make chewing sexy. “So,” he said, after taking a drink of the dark Brian Boru Black Ale microbrew. “Mary tells me you make cupcakes back in America.”
“My bakery,
Take the Cake
, specializes in cupcakes, but I’ve also added pies.”
“Good business move,” he said with a nod. “Who wouldn’t be liking a nice warm piece of pie? Cakes are well enough, but pies are sexy.”
Said the man who obviously had sex on the mind. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. As she watched him bite into a chip, she found herself wondering how that black face scruff would feel on her breasts. Her stomach. And lower still.
“Well, they’re proven popular,” she said as her pulse kicked up. “Which was rewarding, given that it proved the validity of months of research.”
He cocked his head. “You researched whether or not people liked pie?”
“Well, of course I already knew they liked pie. I merely did a survey and cost analysis to calculate the cost and profit margins.”
“Which told you lots of people like pie.”
He was laughing at her. She could see it in his eyes. “Yes. Do you realize how many businesses fail on any given year? Especially these days?” They were finally in a conversational territory she knew well.
“Probably about as many people who don’t succeed in the music business,” he guessed. “Though I’ve never done a study before writing a song.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it, now?”
“What if you wrote a song that didn’t connect with your fans?”
He shrugged and took another bite of battered cod. “I’d write it off as a mistake and move on. No risk, no reward. I tend to go with my gut, then don’t look back.”
“My father’s the same way,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.
He leaned back in the wooden chair and eyed her over the rim of his glass. “And how has that worked out for him?”
“Very well, actually.”
He lifted the glass. “Point made.”
“Different strokes,” she argued.
“You know what they say about opposites.” His gaze moved slowly over her face, his eyes darkening to a stormy, deep sea blue as they settled on her lips, which had parts of her tingling that Sedona had forgotten could tingle.
“I have a spreadsheet,” she said.
“I suspect you have quite a few.” When he flashed her a slow, badass grin she suspected had panties dropping across several continent, Sedona sternly reminded herself that she’d never—ever—been attracted to bad boys.
So why had she forgotten how to breathe?
As that fantasy of him sprawled in her bed next door in the Copper Beach Inn came crashing to the forefront of her mind, Sedona thought of those twenty-two months, three weeks, eight days and sixteen, no almost seventeen hours.
Even if she hadn’t been coming off a very long dry spell, every instinct she possessed told her that not only was Conn Brennan trouble, he was way out of her league.
“They’re not all business related. I also have one for men.”
Putting his ale down, he leaned across the small round table and tucked a strand of blonde hair, which had fallen from the tidy French twist she’d created for the reception, behind her ear. The brush of his fingertips, roughened from guitar strings, caused heat to rise beneath the erotic touch.
“You put us men in boxes.” His eyes somehow managed to look both hot and amused at the same time.
It was not a question. But Sedona answered it anyway. “Not men. Attributes,” she corrected. “What I’d require, and expect, in a mate.”
Oh, God. Why did she have to use that word? While technically accurate, it had taken on an entirely different, impossibly sexy meaning. Desperately wanting to bury her flaming face in her palms, she remained frozen in place as his treacherous finger traced a trail of sparks around her lips, which, despite Ireland’s damp weather, had gone desert dry.
“And where do I fit in your tidy little boxes, Sedona Sullivan?”
Although she was vaguely aware of the couple leaving the snug, and the pub, his steady male gaze was holding her hostage. She could not look away.
“You don’t.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said on that deep, gravelly voice that set off vibrations like a tuning fork inside her.
Conn ran his hand down her throat, his thumb skimming over her pulse, which leaped beneath his touch, before cupping her jaw. “Because I’ve never been comfortable fenced into boundaries.”
And growing up in a world of near-absolute freedom, Sedona had never been comfortable without them. “There’s something you need to know.”
“And that would be?”
“I’m not into casual sex.”
“And isn’t that good to hear.” He lowered his mouth to within a whisper of hers. “Since there’d be nothing casual about how you affect me.”
She drew in a sharp breath, feeling as if she were standing on the edge of the towering cliff where J.T. and Mary’s wedding had taken place in a circle of ancient stones.
“I’m taking you back to your room.”
Somehow, her hand had lifted to his face. “Your flight…”
He parted her lips with the pad of his thumb. “It’s my plane. It takes off when I’m ready.” His other hand was on her leg, his fingers stroking the inside of her thigh through the denim of the jeans she’d put on after returning to her room after the reception. “I’ll ring up the pilot and tell him I’ll be leaving in the morning.”
Then his mouth came down on hers and Conn was kissing her, hard and deep, setting off a blind-blinding supernova inside her.
They left the pub, running through the soft Irish rain into the inn next door. As the old fashioned gilt cage elevator cranked its way up to her floor, he continued to kiss her breathless, making Sedona forgot that she’d never,
ever
, been attracted to bad boys.
Other books in the Castlelough series:
The Shelter Bay (Castlelough’s sister city) series:
Christmas in Shelter Bay
(Cole and Kelli’s pre-novella in A Christmas on Main Street)
You Again
, coming November 11, 2014
The Shelter Bay spin-off Murphy Brothers Trilogy:
When
New York Times
bestselling contemporary romance author JoAnn Ross was seven years old, she had no doubt whatsoever that she’d grow up to play center field for the New York Yankees. Writing would be her backup occupation, something she planned to do after retiring from baseball. Those were, in her mind, her only options. While waiting for the Yankees management to call, she wrote her first novella—a tragic romance about two star-crossed Mallard ducks—for a second grade writing assignment.
